


don't touch my heels

by enchisms



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Gen, Sisters being sisters, happy covid 19 quarantine, if anyone reads this as romantic i will send out a hit, no beta reading thats for real writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:53:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23308666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enchisms/pseuds/enchisms
Summary: ya know when you're just minding your business, and you feel watched? and you just know, to the very atoms of your bones, that no matter what, your sibling is going to annoy the shit out of you?
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	don't touch my heels

**Author's Note:**

> unsupervised sibling conversations are pvp zones

The afternoon was quiet.

Too quiet.

The thought quickly invaded Elsa’s mind, halting her quill as she carefully turned in her seat. Slowly, she ran her eyes through her study, still not moving out of her spot and definitely waiting to see some sort of disaster. There was always a disaster when it was this quiet.

Quiet stopped being normal in the castle fairly quickly, so much that she could almost trick herself into thinking it had always been like this. It was a nice thought to entertain, but it never stayed nice for long.

Her search was nearing its end, having passed by uninterrupted bookshelves and chairs filled with half-written thoughts. Some were hers, but most were not as the fancifully curly handwriting made it obvious. Not that the crown princess didn’t have her own study, but it was a rare sight for her to use it alone.

Just as rare for her to not be in Elsa’s study, filling up more parchment at her barest whimsy. Elsa’s eyes narrowed when her sweep completed, and – against every sisterly instinct in her body – she relaxed her posture. Head cocking to the side, she gives a soft hum of thought, gaze passing once again and still finding no sign that Anna had even been in the room today.

Nothing like a good micro-dose of paranoia to spice up her afternoon, she supposed. Maybe a bit of quiet was seeping into their routine. With a small smile on her face, relaxed like one trying to convince themselves that everything was obviously totally fine, she turned back to her work. Pausing with her quill just above the inkwell, she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. This was totally fine, she couldn’t be expecting Anna to be a hurricane all her life. Exhaling slowly, she dipped her quill and opened her eyes to continue working.

Minutes passed and once again the only sound in the room was the scratch of metal against parchment. The flip of a page, the creak of her chair as she shifted to take a fresh page out of the desk cabinet. More minutes of silence, and soon enough she found that her fresh page was now an inkblot. Elsa gave a groan, head dropping backwards, and it took another frustrated groan with the addition of stomping her feet for her chest to stop feeling tight. Well, as tight.

“Whoa, temper tantrum much?”

She might as well have gotten a bag thrown over her head and a knife to the back for the blood-curling scream that came out. The immediate giggle fits that filled the room, not from her thank you very much, did nothing to relief the icy explosion that covered her desk. Including the work she had so carefully done, and it was with pitiful eyes that she looked at the shredded pages miserably lying in a corner. The offending giggles didn’t have an end point, only seeming to increase in insanity when she had to rip out her own hands out.

“Anna, this isn’t funny!”

“Oh, it _totally_ is. Who on earth did you expect?”

“No one! I didn’t expect anyone! That’s why I screamed!”

The redhead gave a much too skillfully drawn out scoff to be unpracticed, and the glee shining in her eyes at seeing her sister’s frustration boil did nothing for her defense. “You sounded like you were getting murdered.”

“Maybe I was!” Hands now on her hips, shining blue from the icy chunks still attached, Elsa gave a scoff of her own. “You can’t just sneak up on me like that!”

“I knocked!”

“Uh, no, you didn’t.”

“I totally did! Like, _twice_ , even.”

“Is that a suggestion or a confession?”

“Confession! Oh my God, Elsa, I totally knocked!” Anna rolled her eyes, an action quickly duplicated in Elsa, and waved her hands as if to physically push the topic away, an action not duplicated in Elsa. “Okay, whatever, you’re going deaf—”

“I am not!”

“—I totally knocked—”

“You totally didn’t.”

“—but most importantly,” Elsa had a half-second alert as Anna twirled on the balls of her feet, throwing herself to the floor, to flick a wrist and give her a snowy cushion for her fall, “I’m bored.” Hand theatrically across her forehead, the smile on her face contrasted with her breathless proclamation in a perfect wordless declaration of who her next target was. When a beat passed with no response from the blonde, Anna gave a groan. “Come _oooooon_ , sis!”

“What.”

“I’m bored!”

“Don’t you have a hobby by now?” Another careless flick and the snow disappeared, sharply dropping Anna straight down. At her yelp, Elsa simply turned back to her desk with an airy, “You deserved that.”

“If I bruise, I’ll break your heels.” The threat was half-hearted, just like any other such threats between them. It was a new step, an echo of what they could’ve been if they could’ve shared those malicious, self-centered teenage years together. They were learning to trust each other with their vulnerabilities, not just after breakdowns when the only thing that could bring them down was the pressure of their hugs, but also in the daylight wearing smirks and shy eyes.

They had a lot of ground to tread, and it never felt like they had enough time.

“I’ll just make new ones.”

“Not if it’s the French leather ones.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Now standing up, arms crossed and not sporting a single look of hurt but every look of smug, Anna looked down at her sitting sister. The scrunch of Elsa’s eyebrows brought back faint memories of rare dinners spent together where she’d been deliberately obtuse, just to get more than a “Good evening, Anna,” or a “Thank you, Anna,” out of her. Letting her mind trail those _‘what if’_ s now that she was able to seize her sisterly right to annoy every day was sad at best, suffocating at worst.

“Then I’ll wait for you to apologize.” Her voice is every inch regal, a rare flaunt of the tedious elocution lessons both sisters had taken. Elsa’s eyebrows scrunched further, and Anna had to fight the temptation to cross her eyes at her. This was a stand-off.

And with a sigh from Elsa, all the theatrics go right out the window. “Where have you been all morning?” Accepting defeat, Anna shrugged and gave a few exaggerated skips around the study.

Patiently, Elsa watched her. It was honestly only a few seconds, barely noticeable, but not too long ago this silence from her younger sister would have sent her spiraling. She knew her better now, was really knowing her as a sister should, and knew, rationally, this was not a sign of anger or displeasure. This was Anna being… Anna. She had nothing to worry about unless the redhead marched out the room or threw herself out the window, and each would give differing worries.

“We should get a new painting commissioned.” Anna was giving Elsa her back now, lifting herself on her tiptoes while bending over a chair to read the notes thrown on it. “Did you ever pick up the one from your coronation? Like Father’s?”

“No, I’d forgotten, truthfully.” It’s quick and soft, knowing Anna was only lending half an ear to her responses.

“Hmm. I think we should dump it. Get a different one, help set the tone, y’know?” She picked up the stack of notes in her arms and spun on her heel, promptly plopping herself on the floor and letting the papers scatter. “Coronation you was so different, not that it was a bad different, but now you, actual you, _you_ you, is a much better different. We could even like open up a bid for it, stimulate the creativity in the kingdom a bit.”

“It’s a coronation painting. It’s just the ruler, with the orb and scepter, and the chapel behind them. Not much to stimulate, Anna.”

“Okay, yeah, I see your point, but you were all covered up during your coronation—”

“As opposed to now?”

“Shut up, you secret harlot.” There’s a second pause after her words, delivered off-handedly, but her eyes are watchful on her sister’s face. Elsa’s face has only a smirk, and it’s the approval Anna needs to know she didn’t go too far. “You’re all _wow_ and _whoa_ now, and I think half the kingdom like, doesn’t _really_ know what you really look like, so, yeah, stimulation!”

“If they don’t know what I look like, how are they going to paint me?”

“Well,” Anna gives a laughing scoff, now turning her attention to a fruitless attempt of sorting the notes at her feet. “That’s easy, we invite them to meet you! Hold a ball for just the painters around the kingdom, let them see you so that they can,” she drops her voice an octave here, voice turning nasally, “capture your true essence.”

They share a giggle, smiles on their faces in the gentle quiet that finishes it off. The ruffle of papers and tapping nails calmly joins in, and it takes every ounce of willpower for Anna to not jump up from the floor. Unlike Elsa, Anna is used to having only silence as a response. The problem lay in learning the difference between Elsa’s long silences, a process that would take time to seep into her very being. For too long, the only conclusion that the silence brought was self-concluded disgust, irritation, _hatred_ —

But that wasn’t the reality. Elsa’s silences, Elsa’s hums, Elsa herself was so much more complicated than the faint memory of an eight-year-old that Anna had clung to for years. Learning about her, studying the ways her sister would pinch her fingers or tug at her braid, was a process that tested her thin patience every day. But she would go through it gladly as each one correctly learned helped lower the tension in them both.

So, Anna took a slow deep inhale. She read over a few of the notes, started a few stacks, and paused. She looked up and over to Elsa’s desk, her exhale quietly releasing at seeing her sister was still turned to her. Her gaze was off to the side, distant in the way she was biting her cheek, but she was leaving herself open for Anna to watch. Anna took in another breath, slow and steady through the nose, and told the wailing child in her heart to shush, to give Elsa as much time as she needed. At least this silence was shared.

“You do know a ball costs money, right?”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Duh.”

“As does commissioning a painting.”

There’s more force in her voice, although her volume doesn’t change. “… _Duh_.”

Another silence, and the nail tapping that had been paused was resumed immediately. It hadn’t been a complete no, she reassured herself, even as she couldn’t stop her lips pursing at how feeble it sounded. She wasn’t wanting to plan anything huge, maybe something similar to the harvest festival, quaint and loose. An opportunity to connect with the kingdom, to stimulate, that’s all.

Elsa still didn’t speak, but she also hadn’t turned around, so Anna went back to stacking the notes. A lot of these were hers, most of them other such ideas for socialization like the one she’d finally voiced today. Reading them over, she gave huffs of laughter, always able to be amused at herself and the way most of these ideas weren’t even half-formed. She decided to entertain herself this way, her stacks turning into _‘for my study,’ ‘for the fire,’ ‘keep working,’_ and the rare, _‘Elsa’s notes’_. She was finishing up with the scattering to her left when the nail tapping ceased once more.

“I have a few conditions.”

Her very admirable restraint snapped. With a squeal, she shot up from the floor and nearly threw a chair to be across from Elsa. The blonde laughed freely at her antics, mood proving to still be high as she was pulled out of her chair by the shoulders. Their seats switched, Anna now sat behind the desk and Elsa was to the side, subjected to the horror that was Anna’s rummaging in her cabinets. Little sounds of protests escaped from her, hands stuck in an invisible tug-of-war to take out the parchment herself or strangling her braid. Anna’s response was to slap her hovering hands away, tongue peeking out in concentration as she threw open every cabinet except the right one.

Once victorious, with a pile much larger than Elsa thought was necessary, Anna straightened her back and delicately dipped the quill. “Alright, I’ll hear these conditions of yours.”

Smile back on her face, the blonde leaned back in her seat. Counting off on her fingers, she began.

“One: no matchmaking. Two: it doesn’t go for longer than a weekend—”

“Okay, those are so obvious, seriously?”

“Don’t interrupt me.” It’s said coolly, even as her smile doesn’t budge. Her sister rolls her eyes and waves a hand in acceptance. “Third: I pick out my dress, don’t even think about getting into my wardrobe.” Anna muttered at that, but Elsa kept on. “Fourth: don’t touch my heels either or I swear to God, Anna, I’ll remove you from the line of inheritance.”

“As if! You’d hang yourself before letting Princess Wilma be your heir.”

“I’ll take her out too.”

“Oh? And let Duke Johan get his wrinkly little hands on the crown?”

They went down the family line for another ten names. Elsa was fighting to keep from laughing at Anna’s increasingly delirious mimicries, and Anna not holding back her laughter as Elsa continued whacking through the inheritance line. It was good fun, Elsa finally breaking with a small shriek, eyes shining with the same mischief reflected in Anna.

“Stop, stop, stop! I don’t even want to hear you try to do Baron Ignvar!” Anna cackled at the thought, stomping her feet in tune to Elsa’s pleas. “Alright fine, fine, fine, I won’t remove you.” Their giggles petered off, each raising hands to delicately wipe tears in the lull. “I’ll just put Olaf as my heir.” The stunned silence signaled a clear winner, as Anna failed to bring up a rebuttal. “Write that down, condition number four.”

In the pause that followed as the quill angrily scratched away, Elsa pulled herself up with the type of pride achieved only through besting your sibling. Stretching her neck out, she gave a satisfied hum at seeing it written and underlined. “Good. Now, fifth: we choose the winner together, meaning,” she stressed the word, voice raising as she used it to pause the excitement lifting Anna off her seat, “that you have to look at every single one with me. All of them.” Her sister nodded rapidly, face-splitting grin firmly in place. “Do you understand?”

“Mhm, mhm!”

“Do you agree?”

The redhead pulled a face, but nodded quickly. “I don’t like half of them, but yup! I agree!”

“Half? Anna, there’s no way to halve five.”

“Sure there is, two-and-a-half.”

“How are you going to two-and-a-half a condition?”

“It’s when you only like part of it, keep up, Elsa.”

“That’s not- you _know_ that’s not how it works.”

“That’s how it works for me.”

“Anna, you can’t just half a condition. If there’s multiple clauses to a condition—”

“If it’s two clauses, you just like one!”

“No, _no_ , if there’s multiple clauses to a condition, then they all build on each other. It all works together to give a final message. That’s why you either agree with it on its entirety—”

“I never said I didn’t agree with it.” There’s a cheek-biting grin now clearly on the younger girl’s face, and it effectively blows out all of Elsa’s steam. Elsa huffs out a breath, shoulders dropping as she catches the giggle catching in Anna’s throat. “I just said I didn’t _like_ half of them.”

A beat, then two passes in relative silence between them. Anna’s still got the quill in hand, twirling it around her fingers and not caring about the ink stains, with her shoulders inching ever higher as her laughter keeps slipping out of her grin. Elsa’s face has smoothed out in an attempt of control, a direct opposite to her sister’s antics with her shoulders back and chin high.

“No new painting.” It immediately brings out a loud wail from her sister. The hand she’d brought up to accompany her verbal halt is grappled at and Anna is essentially trying her hardest to either climb up her arm or pull Elsa down to the desk. She’s not quite sure which is her sister’s goal, but she does know she wants her hand back in her possession.

She decides she’s better off standing and walking away from it all, but that just makes Anna’s voice get even louder. There’s a barely intelligible mix streaming from her, varying between bargaining for another chance and calling her a fun-sucking harpy, but Elsa can’t be bothered to make sense of it all. While she’s gotten her hand back once she stood, now Anna is wrapped around one of her legs, full bodied and briefly, Elsa contemplates choking her little sister.

Not to death, but enough that she finally gets the fuck off.

There must have been a certain look in her eye when she stops struggling with dragging her leg with her and looks down at the wailing creature attached to her. She certainly feels a certain degree of irritated, the type that only Anna can draw out and has always been the one to draw it out. Be it from stealing all the pillows or flinging a spoonful of butter across the table, or rearranging her closet or throwing paper balls when she was reading, it was a long-ago reserved emotion that her little sister had carved out for herself.

Anna’s voice cuts off for a moment, recognizing the frustration making Elsa’s lip twitch in a snarl. Just like every other time this has happened in their lives, her only reaction is to look adorably sheepish. It makes Elsa see red.

“Let go of my leg!”

“But-but the painting!”

“Can I just get my leg back?”

“No! Not until you take it back!”

“I’m not taking it back!”

“Then this leg is mine now!”

“You can’t even use it, idiot!”

“I’ll figure it out! And the powers that come with it!”

“Oh my God, get off!”

“Take it back!”

“No! Get off!”

“Double no! Take it back!”

The volleyball continues, and with it the snowfall covering the study. There are no howling winds, no angry ice covering the walls, no true danger to it all. The temperature drops enough that there’s goosebumps on Anna’s skin, but it’s nowhere close to freezing. Even as the sisters continue their screaming match, ending after minutes with both of them giving wordless screams until they get red in the face, the winter wonderland of the study looks more like flour than anything else. After all, Elsa’s powers were forever connected to her emotions, but for all the screaming and threats being flung, there is no panic, no anguish, no fear in her.

Just good-natured, sisterly, loving, rage.

Elsa gives a large sigh, posture shot as she hunches over with her hands on her knees. It brings Anna’s face more level to her own, unfortunately, for now there’s a pair of big baby blues staring directly at her. They’ve done this dance before, and historical precedence gives Anna a better chance of coming out the winner with that last move.

“Fine.” It’s a hoarse whisper, given with a hung head as she admits her defeat.

“Hmm?”

“I said, fine,” Elsa grits out, still not looking up from glaring holes into the floor. “I take it back.”

There’s a yippee far too loud for how close it is to her ear, but Anna keeps up her end of the bargain. She releases Elsa’s leg all at once, falling deep into the cushion of snow that’s become the study with giggles. When she sits up, there’s a layer of white delicately covering her from the back, but the grin she firmly wears shows it’s no bother. Elsa rolls her eyes, and valiantly holds back on throwing snow straight at her face. But, she knows her sister would soon open her mouth and divert their attentions again, so Elsa raises a finger as she straightens herself out.

“I need to finish up my work,” a pout predictably replaced the grin, “so that way we can start on organizing the bid.” That brought the grin back. It seemed to inject Anna with another dose of energy, and the redhead jumped up from her snowy seat with a squeal. Elsa gave an airy laugh at the fierce hug that finished up her jump, returning it just as tightly. She ended it first, giving a few pats to the now misshapen bun hanging too low to be proper. “Go get cleaned up, and then come back here so you can start brainstorming until I’m done.”

“Okay! You got it, boss!” A goofy salute punctuated Anna’s words, drawing out another laugh from Elsa even as she’s pushing her to the door. “Oh! And I’ll tell you what Olaf and I did this morning!” A pointed look from her big sister has her bringing her hands up quickly. “Later! Later, I’ll tell you! Promise!”

The blonde rolled her eyes, turning away from her and giving a few waves of her hands to start dissipating the snow. “So long as no one got hurt, I look forward to hearing it.” She gathered the ripped papers from their corner, not exactly looking forward to having to rewrite the letters, but she’s sucked into her own thoughts for a few minutes as she situates herself. The snow has been fully removed, temperature regulated, and she’s feeling pleasant enough that she even humors the idea of getting the fire started. But she gave a quick shrug to herself, dumping that idea, and dips her quill in the inkwell while enjoying the moment of solitude.

Halfway through the page, she paused, realizing she wasn’t relaxed.

Because she wasn’t alone.

“Anna?”

“Mhm?”

“No one did get hurt, right?”

A deep breath. “Nope!”

“You hesitated.”

“We’re doing the bid, right? That’s definitely a thing that’s happening? New coronation painting, getting a ball set up, working together to help stimulate the economy! Good stuff, fun stuff, really invigorating stuff.” Elsa closed her eyes, trying to tune out the continuing nervous ramble and arrange her emotions correctly.

“—then I fell into the mud, and I know I don’t have to explain to you how terrible that’s for my heels. Olaf got a bit muddy too, but he was surprisingly very easy to clean. Don’t worry, I wiped my heels real good before coming in, but they’re velvet! And such a nice yellow shade, so now I’ve got to chuck these too. But it all works out, Elsa! Because we’re doing the bid, and it’s going to be so much fun, and I’m sure I’m not bruised, so I was actually thinking about trying on your leather heels? I think they’ll go so well with this other dress that I—”

“Don’t touch my heels.”

“Oh c’mon, I’m not gonna break them! Have a little faith!”

She knew quiet afternoons were no good. She knew it, didn’t she? The blonde gave a groan, finally rising out of her seat and marching over to the doorway. Anna’s expression got more and more puckered as she got closer, until she looked like she’d drank spoiled milk than anything else. It did nothing to ease the headache teasing at the back of Elsa’s temples.

“Go get changed, don’t touch my heels, come back immediately, tell me exactly what happened, and—” with each order, she poked Anna back on the forehead, successfully getting her into the hallway, “ _don’t_ touch my heels.”

She closed the door – with just a crack left open, just enough that hopefully Anna got the message that she was just annoyed and nothing else (yet) – and went back to her desk to sit down. She waited until Anna’s whining faded away and only then allowed herself to fall face-first on her desk, ink stains be damned.

The afternoon _had_ started off quiet, at least.


End file.
